Former Savage Garden frontman Darren Hayes has blasted Instagram and labelled the platform “homophobic” for removing a photo of him and another man on the basis that it “solicits sex”.
Hayes posted an artistic image of him sitting on a bed dressed in a suit. A naked male model is lying on his lap and is censored with a thick red line. It was captioned, “#HappyPrideMonth, #Homo and #Queer.”
The image was removed from his page and Hayes told his followers the platform informed him that it violated their policies. The musician reposted a cropped version of the photo and lashed out at Instagram in the caption.
“The full picture of this was just pulled for ‘soliciting sex’ lol. It is me, fully clothed, with a nude male model laying across me with his butt censored. Homophobia much? It’s #pridemonth lol. Photo by @jamesreesephotography #queer #homo #loveislove You can see the uncensored version on my MiniApp,” he wrote.
Fans quickly jumped to Hayes’ defence questioning Instagram’s decision to remove the post.
“If it were a nude female laying over a male, it wouldn’t have been an issue right I bet! It’s 2022 for Gods sake, bloody ridiculous!” One fan wrote.
Another wrote, “It’s plain homophobia. Our society, as a world have a long way to go. I hope that things will get a lot better for our LGBTQ family. By the way, this photo is amazing, and wonderful credit to the photographer!”
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Hayes publicly came out as gay in 2005, one day before he married his now-husband of seven years Richard Cullen. The singer has previously revealed that he dated Madonna’s younger brother Christopher before meeting Cullen.
“I guess I can say this now because I’ve been married for 17 years, but I went on a few dates with her brother,” he told Fitzy and Wippa in an interview.
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